After 9/11, Vice President Richard Cheney seized the initiative. He
pushed to expand executive power, transform America's intelligence
agencies and bring the war on terror to Iraq. But first he had to take
on George Tenet's CIA for control over intelligence.
If you want to know why the Republicans target PBS's funding, last
night's "The Dark Side" is an example. It's the reason Americans should
thank our lucky stars that we have it. Last night's program is just
another reminder of what can happen when mortal men think they are
above the Constitution and are willing to risk it all to control the
government. We know the story, at least most of it, but it's startling
all the same.
The relationship between Cheney and Rumsfeld started in the Ford
administration. It's a fascinating tale I happened to watch and live
through, but suffice it to say that between the two of them they
changed the face of that Administration, while solidifying their own
power, which they re-enacted during George W. Bush's presidency. They
are joined in philosophy by what FRONTLINE calls a belief in the
"primacy of military power." It's what I believe finally morphed into
Bush’s doctrine of preemption after 9/11. That tragedy became their launching pad for a policy dreamed up long ago.
It's called "The Dark Side," and takes its title from a quote by Vice
President Cheney in the wake of 9/11. Cheney said that the CIA, the
Pentagon and other intelligence-gathering U.S. forces would have to
"work from the dark side" to glean information and combat and defeat
terrorism.
The 90-minute "Dark Side" documentary begins grippingly, with
recordings of a 911 call from the World Trade Center. It then shifts
quickly to detail Cheney's actions and orders on that day. For
instance, Cheney ordered that hijacked commercial airliners be shot
down before reaching the terrorists' targets.
The documentary traces Cheney's political history and background, a
record that goes all the way back to the Nixon administration, where
Cheney worked for Rumsfeld as a young intern. Simply by underlining in
red the names of Cheney loyalists on the organizational flow chart of
the George W. Bush administration, "The Dark Side" shows how deep
Cheney's influence stretches.
According to "Frontline," when Cheney and others in the Bush White
House pushed for an early connection between 9/11 and Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein, they were told bluntly, by the CIA and others, that the
U.S. strike was the work of Afghanistan-based Al Qaeda.
"Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick," says one CIA
official, dismissively. Yet when no link to Hussein could be found,
Cheney established a different intelligence-seeking division, run by
old friends at the Pentagon, to keep looking.
From this point on, "Dark Side" touches on lots of familiar, volatile
subjects and names: weapons of mass destruction and Scooter Libby,
yellowcake and Valerie Plame, Curveball and Mohamed Atta.
It's a complicated narrative, but Kirk tells it clearly. He makes it
seem irrefutable that the battle to link 9/11 with Iraq eventually
pitted Rumsfeld and Cheney, who backed that position, against former
CIA Director George Tenet and others, who found no facts to support it.
The book on this subject continues to be written. With "The Dark Side,"
though, we're treated to the latest, and most impressively thorough,
chapter.
What is especially upsetting about the omissions by these white male
members of the corporate state's military industrial complex is that it
comes as congressional member after member, newscast after newscast is
detailing the ever-growing, nonstop, needless horrific violence our
citizen soldiers are suffering in Iraq.
